Impact assessment study on pictorial warnings among rickshaw polar in Dhaka city

• Main Authors: Md Bazlur Rahman, Shameem Haider Patwary, Farhana Zaman, Md Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Publishing 2019-10-01
• Series: Tobacco Induced Diseases
• Subjects: tobacco; pictorial health warnings
• Online Access: http://www.journalssystem.com/tid/,111396,0,2.html

Objective Bangladesh is a large and heavily densely populated country. Total population are 168.07 million, this makes the 8th most populous country in the world. The capital and largest city is Dhaka, which has a population of 14.4 million. Dhaka is often called the Rickshaw Capital of the World with more than 600,000 cycle rickshaws on the roads every day. In Bangladesh 37.8 Million (GATS-2017) people are using tobacco and tobacco is one of the major causes of poverty. Bangladesh government has enacted tobacco control law in 2005 and amended in 2013 passed the rules in 2015. As per rules Graphic Health Warnings (GHWs) has been implemented from 19 March 2016. The objective of the study was to identify the impact of GHWs implementation among the Rikshaw Polar in Dhaka city. SPSS 21, Microsoft Excel used to analysis the data. Methods Cross sectional study design, quantitative and qualitative approaches, purposive sampling method, semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interview used to conduct the survey. Results 100% Rickshaw Polar are well known the visual impact of GHWs implementation among these 54 % respondents feel that they should quit smoking after seen the GHWs on the time of smoking. Only 30% respondents tried to quit smoking after implement the GHWs but they again start smoking and only 26% respondent shows that their relatives/friends/family totally quit smoking to see the GHWs. Conclusions Noticeable changed have been seen but changing attitude of GHWs vary among different groups. Less priority and poor awareness are the big challenges for protecting rikshaw polar from the danger of tobacco. Tobacco Company still trying to increased their sales among this group through illegal promotional campaign. So that related authority/government should strongly monitor the promotional campaign and government and civil society organization should take initiative to building awareness.